“Sir, I’m not trying to be contrary,” Simmons almost whispered into Jackson’s ear, “but that ground data has yet to even be preliminarily classified by our own intel section. Is it—”
“I appreciate your concern, Commander,” Jackson said, waving Simmons off. “But he’ll be climbing into a drop shuttle within the next few days and dropping into hostile territory. To deny him any and all information we have on the situation would be criminally negligent.”
Simmons just nodded and walked back to the tactical station, looking over the shoulder of the lieutenant that was sitting monitoring the passive sensors.
By the time Jackson was relieved to go off watch Beck was still at the station, a look of fierce concentration on his face and what looked like copious notes made on the tile he’d requested a few hours earlier. Jackson left instructions with his relief that the lieutenant colonel was not to be disturbed or questioned while he did his work. It was a long shot that the Marine officer would see something in the limited information that his intel people had missed. He had a seasoned crew in the CIC that had proven themselves quite adept at digging needles out of haystacks, but Beck wasn’t otherwise usefully employed on the Star and anything that might give his people an advantage was worth exploring.
“Captain Wolfe to the bridge!”
The call came in forty-five minutes before Jackson had planned to get up. As it was he was already awake and mentally preparing for the day and trying to decide how he would approach the problem of being the lone Terran ship in the system. It made it nearly an impossible proposition to get down to the planet when the Darshik could afford to keep patrols out in the outer system as well as ships sitting in orbit over Juwel. He didn’t hear any other alerts going out after the call for him to report to the bridge, so he assumed the decision hadn’t been made for him by the Darshik finding their cold-coasting ship as she skulked around near the orbit of the only system’s largest gas giant.
He slid his boots on and pulled his top over his head. As he always did when his ship was in a combat situation he had been asleep in his uniform. The jog to the bridge was a short one and the Marine sentry simply came to attention as a sign of respect when he saw Jackson. His standing rules on the Star while underway were to not announce his presence or call the bridge to attention as he walked on or off.
“What do we have?” Jackson asked. He noted absently that Lieutenant Colonel Beck was still at his station and diligently working.
“Federation transponder codes popped up briefly and then vanished. We didn’t get enough for a full identification,” Commander Simmons said. “CIC says they came from the direction of the DeLonges jump point and belong to Fourth Fleet. The squawk was shut off before we got unit designation or ship registry.”
“I’d say the obvious answer is the 508th has just arrived and one of their ships didn’t secure their transponder prior to transitioning into the system,” Jackson said, shaking his head in disgust. It was an amateur move. “That’s unfortunate since we have diverted much of the attention in this system away from the jump points … that mistake will likely cause the Darshik to redeploy to the outer system and not necessarily clear out the orbital paths of Juwel.”
“My thought as well, Captain,” Simmons nodded.
“Shit,” Jackson muttered as the tactical computer put up blinking yellow icons representing the Intrepid-class destroyers near the jump point. “Coms! Prepare a burst transmission that has our latest logs, position, and intel reports from both the surface and our CIC’s analysis of the overall tactical picture of the Juwel System. I want it tight-beam transmitted in the general direction of the DeLonges jump point. Repeat the transmission three times, standard encryption.”
“Captain, we could relay the transmission through the drone we have down at the planet and let it rebroadcast it to our fleet,” Dole suggested.
“Excellent suggestion, Ensign,” Wolfe said, biting back his original, disparaging reply. “However, having the drone send out a high-power, wide-beam broadcast will let the Darshik know exactly where it’s at and we’ll need it when we begin our approach. We also can’t afford the time it would take for the signal to reach the drone and then be sent all the way back out to the outer system. That fifty-minute delay will give the Darshik ships that much more time to close in on Captain Rawls and his squadron.”
Dole seemed to be perking up and at least offering suggestions and engaging of late, so it wouldn’t do much good if Wolfe bit his head off in the heat of things. Despite the previous war the wheels of change turned very slowly in Starfleet and many young officers coming out of the academy still needed a lot of practical training before they were worth a damn. He was gradually coming around to the fact that Dole wouldn’t need to be replaced and moved off the bridge to somewhere more commensurate with his ambition and talents, so berating him for not seeing the situation from all sides would be counterproductive. Besides, the battle was already met and it wasn’t as if there was anybody down on the lower decks that could be brought up as an OPS officer at a moment’s notice.
“Transmission packet ready, sir,” Lieutenant Epsen reported.
“Send it,” Jackson said. “Tactical, we’re broadcasting our position right now, so if the Darshik are good enough to pick this out of the noise from this gas giant … better be ready for anything.”
“We’re ready, Captain,” Simmons nodded. “However, the planet is a double-edged sword in this case. It’s helping to hide our signature, but even at this distance the interference it’s throwing off is playing hell with our passive sensors.”
“Understood,” Jackson said. “But I don’t want to come out from behind it just yet, nor do I want to light us up by firing the mains. We’ll gamble on the fact the tight-beam burst transmission to the outer system wasn’t detected.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Star had been chasing the gas giant in a heliocentric trailing orbit since they’d come onto the new course and shut the engines down. The planet was typical of its type in that it generated a lot of radiation that helped to hide a ship the size of the assault carrier from long-range radar scans. The downside, as Commander Simmons had pointed out, was that it also effectively blinded them, the passives being overwhelmed by the interference the closer they got.
The tactic had been a bit of desperation on Jackson’s part, an underpowered ship outnumbered by at least six to one in contested space … he had no choice but to run and hide while he figured out his next move that wouldn’t result in the pointless loss of the Star with all hands aboard. Now that the escort destroyers had arrived he was thinking furiously about how he could use that to his advantage even with Rawls’s squadron blundering into the system like the proverbial bull in the china shop.
The main issue he saw was that Ed Rawls was very enamored with the fact he was put in overall command of the mission. He’d already shown he was unwilling to take suggestion or to even concede that he might not have the experience that others under him had. Rawls had spent the Phage War as the OPS officer aboard a Merchant Fleet ship that was supporting mining operations in a system far, far away from the Frontier. Jackson didn’t hold that against him, but he did bristle at the fact the prematurely promoted senior captain refused to see that he simply wasn’t qualified to strategize the retaking of the Juwel System.
“Sir, incoming transmission,” Epsen said twenty minutes after they’d sent their burst packet. “Wow … this is a high-power broadcast, Captain. Everything in the system will hear this one. It’s not even encrypted.”
“Who’s it from?” Jackson asked, already suspecting the answer.
“The flagship, sir. The broadcast originated from the Relentless.”
“Put it on the overheads,” Jackson sighed. He did the math and knew that the transmission must have been sent as soon as the 508th charged into the system.
“Attention enemy ships unlawfully operating within this Terran-controlled star system,” Captain Rawls’s voice came over the sp
eakers. “Our taskforce has arrived to ensure your exit from this space … that can either be by concession or by force. We will allow your ships to withdraw, but any further hostile acts will result in immediate retaliation from my battlegroup.”
“That’s the end of the transmission, sir,” Epsen said in a quiet, stunned voice. Jackson opened his mouth twice but made no sound as he tried to process the utter stupidity he’d just been witness to. The problem was there were so many layers to the stupidity that when he peeled one off to marvel at it there was another one right under it.
“I’m … actually speechless,” Simmons said from the tactical station, his face mirroring the shock of everyone else on the bridge.
“Perhaps the senior captain has some overall strategy we’re not aware of,” Jackson said, finally finding his voice. “This changes nothing for us in the immediate future … we continue to plan and prep in order to safely deploy our drop shuttles and then we get the hell out of this system. Understood?” The ragged chorus of confirmations was decidedly unenthusiastic.
Jackson thought he understood why Rawls had pulled such an idiotic opening gambit upon his arrival. He was afraid. Despite his swagger and bluster back on the New Sierra Platform, he didn’t want to actually fly his ship into combat. He hoped his message would convince the enemy to leave without a shot fired. It was a foolish, misguided hope considering the Darshik had been chewing up Terran battlegroups at the DeLonges jump point for months.
The broadcast did offer Jackson an insight into how Rawls intended to fight the Darshik in the Juwel System: He didn’t. He now realized he couldn’t count on the 508th to provide any sort of meaningful cover, escort, or diversion in order to allow the Star to get back to the planet and complete her mission. He marveled at the overt display of incompetence and cowardice. What the hell else could go wrong on this mission?
“Captain, I think you’ll want to look at this,” Lieutenant Colonel Beck said from his elbow. The Marine looked like he hadn’t slept in over a day and Jackson had a chill run up his back as he instinctively knew he was about to get the answer to his unspoken question.
14
“What do you have for me, Colonel?” Jackson asked, indicating for Beck to retake his seat so he could more easily manipulate the imagery he had presented on the terminal monitor, obviously prepared to give an impromptu briefing on his findings.
“Yes, sir,” Beck said, his voice crisp and alert despite the signs he’d been up and working for over a full day ship’s time. “I believe that the bodies being stacked and burned by the Darshik are a form of psychological warfare.”
“I surmised that myself when I saw the stacks of dead non-combatants, Colonel,” Jackson deadpanned, unimpressed.
“Yes, sir,” Beck said again, unruffled by Jackson’s response. “But I don’t think this was something they came up with. When I went back through all the mission data I saw that Rucker had his Marines burning Darshik bodies with a plasma torch after each engagement. This was done for precautionary reasons since we don’t know if the Darshik’s biological material carries pathogens or parasites that are a risk to human physiology, but the Darshik have apparently interpreted this as psyops being perpetrated by our side and are mimicking the action.”
“You have my attention now, Colonel,” Jackson nodded. “Go on.”
“The timing of this change in tactics, not to mention the specific targeting of the civilian population, makes little sense given that nothing has changed on our side to drive it,” Beck went on. “In fact, the Marines are in a weaker position now than when they first deployed … there has to be something else driving the aliens to this extreme.
“After analyzing the engagement patterns, the number of troops used in each, the lack of support from orbiting starships, and the suspected targets … I don’t think this small pocket of alien troops flanking Westfall is executing the enemy's primary mission. The limited enemy contact, along with hit and run tactics designed to keep the Marines spinning in place, makes me believe this all is nothing more than a diversionary tactic meant to keep the only sizable ground force on the planet focused on the wrong thing.”
“And what would be the right thing, Colonel?” Jackson asked.
“I couldn’t begin to speculate given the lack of information available to us on the Aludra Star, Captain,” Beck said. “We have a … distressing … lack of intel from the usual sources for such a long-running operation. I understand Colonel Rucker’s full force didn’t survive the insertion, so he’s lacking the usual complement of drones and aircraft, but trying to plan around just what his Marines are seeing on the ground is … challenging.”
“Diplomatically put, Colonel,” Jackson said drily. “So your assertion is that we’re completely missing the big picture in the ground campaign and that the Darshik move on Neuberlin is a diversionary tactic?”
“I’m positive of it, sir,” Beck nodded. “Neuberlin is a strategically unimportant city. I know it’s the capital, but all that’s there is the governmental seats of power and the banking industry. There’s nothing there that would amount to anything if you were trying to subdue a planet with such a small force. You’d have to strike at the heavily industrialized places and power generation sites, anything that could be used to resupply and fortify the defending forces arrayed against you. From what I can tell half the factories that have been shut down on Juwel only did so at the direction of the human government, not any enemy attacks.”
“So if you were to speculate, what would you say they’re up to?” Jackson asked. “They’ve committed a lot of ships to holding this system against three serious tries by the Federation to retake it.”
“There is one thing I noticed from the reports of the early invasion, the landing before the first Marines were deployed,” Beck motioned to the terminal. On it Jackson could see he’d accessed some of the intel briefs that had made it back to New Sierra regarding the initial incursion by the Darshik.
“Before the collapse of the civilian information networks and news media there were reports that Darshik starships were firing on any aircraft moving along the western coast of the main continent.” He pointed out the area on a map. Juwel only had one large landmass that covered nearly twenty-eight percent of the surface; the rest was one contiguous ocean and dotted with thousands of tiny islands.
“So there was something along that coast line they were … protecting?” Jackson asked.
“I think maybe more so out in the water,” Beck said. “The ocean, according to the records on this ship’s servers, is relatively shallow save for a few deep trenches on the opposite side of the mainland. Right off the western coast the average depth is only around twenty-five meters all the way out for a few thousand kilometers before the continental shelf ends and it drops off.”
“I see,” Jackson said noncommittally while looking over the information on the screen.
“Unfortunately, Captain, I cannot give you any firm conclusions,” Beck apologized, “only an educated guess based on the information available. However, regarding the original matter you asked me to look into: I would say with ninety-five percent probability that the new Darshik tactic of killing and burning civilians is a direct response to a misunderstanding of the same actions taken by our Marines.”
“So I need to see what the hell is going on over here,” Jackson ran his finger along the monitor down the line representing the western coast, nearly four thousand, five hundred kilometers away from where everyone was focused on Neuberlin. “And pass it on to Colonel Rucker if your theory pans out … not that he has any way to move his forces over there.”
“No he doesn’t,” Beck said. “But we can deploy our drop shuttles right into it. I realize that our mission is to reinforce Rucker’s people but depending on what we might find there it may be necessary to split our forces and leave the defense of the capital to the Marines already there.”
“That won’t go over well,” Jackson said sourly. “But I can’t fault your logic.
Very well, Lieutenant Colonel … let me see what I can do about getting you the intel you need. Go get some rack time, you look like you really need it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Beck said, climbing back out of the seat.
“Ensign Dole! Please add Lieutenant Colonel Beck to the bridge access list,” Jackson spoke up. “And make it so his credentials will log into this terminal if he needs it.”
“Aye, sir.”
“I regret having to divide your attention, but I’ll likely need you up here again as we plan for our approach and deployment over Juwel,” Jackson said to the Marine officer.
“Of course, sir,” Beck nodded. “Wherever I’m needed most.”
After Beck left the bridge settled into a quiet hum of activity while the Star continued to drift along, slowly closing in on the gas giant. Jackson walked over to the OPS station so he could talk to Dole without shouting from the opposite corner of the bridge. He had a vague idea of how to get at least a limited amount of intel, but it wasn’t a guarantee.
“Sir?” Dole straightened as Jackson walked over.
“Bring up the specs on the drone we left over Juwel.” Jackson laid a hand on the ensign’s shoulder. “Specifically the imaging equipment it’s carrying.” Dole brought up a new window on the leftmost monitor and quickly brought up a scrolling spec sheet of the small spacecraft sitting in high geostationary orbit above the planet.
“It doesn’t have much,” Dole said, looking over the suite of imagers the drone had available. There were two visible spectrum cameras, one wide-field and the other a more long-range instrument but still nothing that could do the job at the craft’s current altitude. There were two other multispectral imagers including one mid-wave thermal camera that also had insufficient magnification power for the job.
Iron & Blood: Book Two of The Expansion Wars Trilogy Page 13